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Barnes’s first law of conservation states: “When predator walks in door, common sense jumps out of window forgetting trousers”. Which explains why the debate about badgers is so peculiarly heated: why badgers are so greatly loved, so greatly hated. No one is calm about predators.

The curious business of the badger cull can’t be explained in any rational way. “The desire to kill badgers seems more visceral than a simple question of economics,” Patrick Barkham remarks — before at once achieving a genuine understanding of why so many farmers are keen to eradicate a highly popular species of native wildlife.